Pumpkin Ale Cheesecake with Beer Pecan Caramel Sauce

I conducted a very non-sientiffic study on my Facebook page about pumpkin beer. To be honest with you, I have always been a touch hesitant of fruit flavored beer. And although pumpkin is a squash, therefore not a fruit, it seems to fall under the same umbrella in my mind since I make pies out of them.

But I love nothing more than trying new and exotic beers. And I always want input and feedback from other craft beer fans. So, my very un-scientific study yielded the final conclusion: based only on comments and likes, I want to search the town for the following Pumpkin Beers for another non-scientific Beer Tasting Study:

Dogfish Head, Pumpkin

Avery, Rumpkin

St Arnold, Pumpkinator

Southern Tier, Pumpking

If you have any suggestions, please chime in. I’m looking to expand the reach of my non-scientific study.

In a food processor add the graham crackers and brown sugar, process until only crumbs are left. While the food processor is still running, add the melted butter and process until it resembles wet sand. Dump into the bottom of a 9 inch spring form pan. Press into the bottom until well compacted.

In the bowl of a stand mixer, add the brown sugar, white sugar and cream cheese. Mix until well combined. One at a time, add the eggs and vanilla, mixing until well combined, scraping the bottom, before adding more.

Add the pumpkin puree, cinnamon nutmeg and salt, mix until very well combined.

Add the beer and stir until combined.

Sprinkle the flour over the bowl, stir on medium speed until just combined.

Pour over the crust.

Bake at 350 for about one hour or until the center no longer jiggles when you shake the rack the cheesecake sits on, it will still look wet in the center. The secret to a great cheesecake is not to over bake it, it's better to slightly under bake it for a smooth mousse like texture.

Chill until set, about 3 hours.

To make the caramel sauce, add the sugar, beer and corn syrup to a pot and stir over medium high heat for about 1 minute. Stop stirring and allow to boil, untouched, until it turns an amber color, about 10 minutes (230 on a candy thermometer). Add the butter and cream, stir until combined. Add the pecans and stir. Allow to cool to approximately room temperature before serving over chilled cheesecake.

Pumpkin cheesecake, yes, please! Especially after having made your delicious chocolate stout cheesecake…I know it’s going to be great! I’ve been on a search for the best pumpkin beer (with real pumpkin flavor and spice) for a few years, and I’d say that Dogfish Head’s Punkin and Southern Tier’s Pumking are my favorites. You might also want to try O’Fallon’s pumpkin ale. It’s a favorite of one of my friends.

My mom went to a blind beer tasting party (everyone brings 2 6-packs, then samples all the beers and rates them) recently and, not knowing what to bring, she stopped at 7/11 on the way and bought Shocktop’s Pumpkin Wheat…. It won 2nd place of all the beers!

I’m drooling over the beer caramel sauce with pecans. Sounds like something I’d like to drizzle over everything!

I previously loved the Pumpking from Southern Tier, but recently at a beer fest (Screw City Beer Fest, Rockford, IL), I had the opportunity to try Pumpkin ale from O’Fallon…if you have the opportunity to try it, do so!

Dogfish Head Punkin’ Ale is my absolute favorite. That’s the only thing I drink when it is in season. I’ve also heard some great things about the Pumpking one too, but I haven’t tried it yet. I will, however, be making this cheesecake and will eat the entire thing myself!

Rumpkin is a hard to get beer. It doesn’t see wide distribution at all. 18% abv monster of a beer. Pumpkin ale aged in rum barrels. It’s absolutely fantastic. Luckily, I have a bottle. Ages well too. If I come across more, maybe I’ll ship you a couple. haha.

Btw, awesome cheesecake. Nice touch with the caramel sauce too. May have to make this for our pumpkin beer tasting this week. Keep up the great work!

Love it. I just did some Pumpkin Ale Cupcakes, which I was really excited about until I brought some to my dad and he asked me why I would waste perfectly good beer on a cupcake. Hopefully your taste testers are a bit more supportive. Hah. This looks great!

I made this today with Angry Orchard Hard Cider in place of the Pumpkin Ale as I did not have any on hand and had a special occasion to make it for tonight. I used the apple ginger flavor of hard cider. It smelled AMAZING while baking in the oven. I didn’t have a spring form pan, so used a deep dish pie pan and that was no where near large enough for the batter. I did not have time to make more crust (I also made crust with gingersnap cookies instead of graham crackers to add even more ginger flavor), so I used two premade graham cracker pie crusts in foil pans that I had no idea what to do with and made two extra cheesecakes. The two in the premade pie crusts came out perfect- no splits or anything. The one I made with my gingersnap crust in the pie pan split a little bit on top, so I decided to take a little tiny piece to make sure it was edible to serve for my anniversary dinner tonight… Soooo yummy, even with the changes. I can’t wait to try the original!

I have a Pumpkin cheesecake recipe that I made for the past 15 years. Decided to try this over the weekend. Got rave reviews and plan on replacing my usually go to recipe with this one. Super delish. Thanks!

These pies smell delicious baking in my oven! Thanks for sharing this beer-tober-fest style recipe. My advice to anyone who makes this is the filling is enough for 3 pies! I recommend you either cut the recipe in half or make extra pies crusts to share : )

LOVE Pumpkin Ale! We have a couple of local breweries here in Ontario, Canada and I have to admit, I’ve tried them all! I’m a bit of a beer snob and prefer microbreweries! I’m definitely going to make this cheesecake!!

I made this last night for a Halloween party and it was the best cheesecake I have ever made! I think I always over cooked them until I read this post. Great tip on slightly under baking, worked great. Thank you!

One of the best pumpkin desserts ever! So wonderful that I made it twice in one week for two different groups. Only change I made the second time was to toast the pecans a little – added some extra crunch and a nice toasty flavor to the delicious sauce. I’m trying the leftover sauce tonight on some vanilla ice cream – can hardly wait!

I’m not sure where you’re located, but Baked Pumpkin Ale from Lancaster Brewing Company (Lancaster, PA) is fantastic. I plan on making this for our annual Black and Orange Potluck Luncheon (Can’t say Halloween). Thanks!